Introduction
Valeria is a pirate and adventuress (a member of The Red Brotherhood of pirates) in the fictional universe of Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian stories. She appears in Robert E. Howard’s Conan novella “Red Nails”, serialized in Weird Tales 1. part in Weird Tales July, August/September and October, 1936. This was the last Conan story written by Howard, and published posthumously.
Robert E. Howard described Valeria in “Red Nails” as follows:
She was tall, full-bosomed, and large-limbed, with compact shoulders. Her whole figure reflected an unusual strength, without detracting from the femininity of her appearance. She was all woman, in spite of her bearing and her garments. The latter were incongruous, in view of her present environs. Instead of a skirt she wore short, wide-legged silk breeches, which ceased a hand’s breadth short of her knees, and were upheld by a wide silken sash worn as a girdle. Flaring-topped boots of soft leather came almost to her knees, and a low-necked, wide-collared, wide-sleeved silk shirt completed her costume. On one shapely hip she wore a straight double-edged sword, and on the other a long dirk. Her unruly golden hair, cut square at her shoulders, was confined by a band of crimson satin.
As a member of the piratical Red Brotherhood, she refused to become the mistress of Red Ortho, She jumped overboard off the Kushite coast and made her way to Zabhela. From there, she learned of Zarallo’s Free Companions, and went to Sukhmet at the Darfar border. Soon, though, she found herself spurning the advances of a Stygian officer, stabbing and killing him, and so fled south with Conan in pursuit.
Source: Wikipedia.
